Soft plastics found in trout stomachs

Warren - actually, there were 2 fish mentioned in Ronnie's article. The one
with 19 plastic worms and lizards (plus hooks) in it was otherwise healthy.
That fish was not caught by Ronnie, but by someone else who took the fish to
a taxidermist. Further along in the article however, Ronnie then says he
himself caught a bass once in Lake Martin that was skinny and in poor
health. This fish had 4 plastic worms in it's stomach, and was starving to
death. This incident was what made Ronnie finally stop throwing his
plastics into the lake.

Shawn


"go-bassn" wrote in message
...
The article says the bass was healthy Shawn...

Warren

"Shawn" non@non wrote in message
...
Read your article Ronnie - it's a good message and one that should get
out
there more often. I hope it doesn't take each angler to find a skinny
fish
full of plastic to stop throwing them out like that. I have to admit
that
years ago I used to do the same thing.


"RGarri7470" wrote in message
...
Reminds me of the story and picture I posted ast November of a bass
with
19
plastic worms in its stomach

http://fishing.about.com/cs/fishfact.../aa110303a.htm
Ronnie

http://fishing.about.com

Warren - actually, there were 2 fish mentioned in Ronnie's article. The one
with 19 plastic worms and lizards (plus hooks) in it was otherwise healthy.
That fish was not caught by Ronnie, but by someone else who took the fish to
a taxidermist. Further along in the article however, Ronnie then says he
himself caught a bass once in Lake Martin that was skinny and in poor
health. This fish had 4 plastic worms in it's stomach, and was starving to
death. This incident was what made Ronnie finally stop throwing his
plastics into the lake.

Shawn


"go-bassn" wrote in message
...
The article says the bass was healthy Shawn...

Warren

"Shawn" non@non wrote in message
...
Read your article Ronnie - it's a good message and one that should get
out
there more often. I hope it doesn't take each angler to find a skinny
fish
full of plastic to stop throwing them out like that. I have to admit
that
years ago I used to do the same thing.


"RGarri7470" wrote in message
...
Reminds me of the story and picture I posted ast November of a bass
with
19
plastic worms in its stomach

http://fishing.about.com/cs/fishfact.../aa110303a.htm
Ronnie

http://fishing.about.com

Warren :

I think prt of it could be what somebody else here has already commented on.
Salt-impregnated soft plastic baits swell over time in water, which probably
would make it harder to pass. Not impossible however, and I'm sure this is
occurring more often than we think and for the most part the baits ARE
eventually getting passed. But if and when a fish eats numerous baits
within a short time period trying to pass all of these as they swell, roll,
and tangle inside the fish's stomach ..... well, it could be a problem.

I'm not in the position to speak with any great deal of authority on this,
as I haven't studied it. I'm just speculating about impacts, and mainly
wanted to report to the group on this interesting observation in Vermont.

But the guy named "John" who has responded a couple times so far seems to
think it's the new "lead shot" issue in aquatics. I personally don't think
it's even close to warranting that level of alarm. If waves of fish start
washing up on lakes around Vermont and the rest of the country stuffed to
the gills with soft plastics, then we should be worrying.

But for now, I think a nice, targeting PSA to the angling community would
suffice. Again, as I said earlier, I think for the most part the angling
community is generally full of well-informed, concerned people who would not
intentionally do anything to harm lakes and rivers and the fish that swim in
them ! However, having said that, some anglers may not realize or take the
time to think about what happens to their used plastics after being tossed
in the lake. I'm sure many people may actually think they just "go away" -
dissolved or breakdown eventually or something - which they don't.

So, just by educating angler groups as to the fate of these baits in the
environment could be a vast improvement and result in a large reduction in
the amount of plastics thrown overboard.

Shawn



"go-bassn" wrote in message
...
Hi Shawn, thanks for contributing here; Any idea why something as soft &
rounded like a soft plastic grub, worm, etc would not simply pass through
a
fish's digestive tract? I find it hard to believe that a trout could
digest
a bony crawfish & not have a plastic grub slide right through.

Warren

"Shawn" non@non wrote in message
...
Budd :

You're right about my point. The fact that many of these trout had
multiple
plastics in their stomach tells me they either aren't passing them at
all,
or are passing them very slowly with much difficultly. So, in the
meantime,
while they're working on getting them out, there's not much room for
actual
food and nutrition. Obviously this isn't going to happen with every
fish
whether it's a bass or trout or something else that swallows a soft
plastic
bait. Most likely only eat one or so and that leaves room for other
good
food while they work on passing the plastic. Fish do eat a number of
nasty
things that can't be digested well such as crayfish claws, pine cones,
snail
shells etc etc, but they are eventually passed. So a trout eating ONE
or
maybe TWO plastic worms might not be a big deal. A trout that finds the
motherload, or develops a taste for garlic and salt (;-) could be in
trouble
in terms of packing it's stomach with undigestable stuff, leaving no
room
for actual food.

Regardless of all the "what if's", I still think it's something anglers
need
to be conscious of, and take care not to just haphazardly throw used
soft
plastics into lakes.

Shawn




"Budd Cochran" wrote in message
...
I think Shawn's point is that the plastics might cause the fish to not
have
stomach room for normal food and starve to death because of it. I can
see
where it is possible and I'm not even a tree hugger.

Budd

"John" wrote in message
...
So what?
Is there any thing special with these items?
Is there any demonstrated harm?
Fish have eaten all sort of mankind's refuse in water bodies for
centuries,
so what?
Maybe the plastics have been eaten and passed and eaten and passed
time
and
time again, if so is this a big problem?
The plastics came from stomachs of live fish that were eaten by
humans,
right?
Are the plastics only found in 2-8 pound brown trout?
Are they only found in Vermont's 2,200 acre lake?

Your post raises lots of questions. If this is a "NEW" event
occurring
in
multiple states in multiple water bodies with multiple species there
may
be
a big problem causing loss of fish life or health and forecasting
fishery
declines. If these plastics are just starting to be accumulating in
fish
stomachs, it could forecast issues in years ahead.

Has anyone heard of this quantity happening elsewhere?

John


--
Remove FLY to reply
"Shawn" wrote in message
...
Budd :

I'm a fisheries biologist with the State of Vermont's Fish &
Wildlife
Department. Last fall and early this spring I received a number
of
calls
about large brown trout (that we stock in a nearby 2,200-acre
lake)
having
very strange grubs or insect larvae in their stomach. Of course,
without
seeing the stomach contents, I couldn't comment on what the trout
might
have
been eating, but I told the anglers to keep the stomachs next time
they
found such things when cleaning their fish. Over the winter
ice-fishing
season, and through this spring, several anglers brought stomachs
from
brown
trout ranging from 2 to 10 pounds into the local baitshop. The
owner
of
the
shop put the stomachs in the freezer, then called me one day this
spring
when he had 8 or 10 stomachs in ziplock bags. I told him to thaw
them
out
and I'd be down in an hour or so.

I brought all my insect guides, minnow guides etc etc - anything I
thought
might help me identify the strange prey these brown trout were
eating.
But,
when I got to the baitshop and picked up the first "grub", I
started
to
laugh. When I told the baitshop owner it was a "senko", he
immediately
realized I was right and turned red, embarrassed he didn't realize
it
himself right away. Anyways, out of the 10 stomachs I examined
that
day
with the strange "grubs" in them, every one of them turned out to
be
plastic
baits of some sort. One stomach from an 8-pound brown trout had
14
different plastic lures in it, ranging from senkos to tube jigs to
flukes
to
broken pieces of what looked like plastic worm bits.

Now - this is what I think is happening. I'm also a bass
fisherman,
and
I
fish in our local Bassmasters club. So, I know how fast bass
fisherman
go
through soft plastics. At the end of a day's fishing, whether for
a
tournament or just for fun, the floor of my boat and my friends
boats
are
littered with soft plastics that are torn and won't stay on hooks
anymore.
Most ethical fisherman who care about the environment, the lakes
they
fish,
and the fish they're after take those plastics home and dispose of
them
properly. However, I have personally witnessed countless times,
fisherman
tearing off a plastic worm and throwing it into the lake. Maybe
sometimes
the plastics blow out of the bass boats as they tear across the
lake
at
70mph. No matter how these plastics are getting into the lake, I
have
now
seen first hand that trout WILL eat them. Not only do they eat
them
as
they
gently sway and sink to the bottom of an 80-foot deep lake, in my
opinion
they are also being picked up after they've reached the bottom.
Brown
trout
will forage the bottom of lakes, and in the winter under the ice
will
do
so
in very shallow water even. Since seeing the plastics in the
stomachs,
I've
spoken to more and more trout fisherman and I'm finding this is a
much
too
common occurence - alot of the trout fisherman are getting brown
trout
with
plastics in their stomachs in January, February, and March.

Anyone who is familiar with Vermont knows that our bass fishing
season
ends
in November, and that from December to mid-April our lakes are
buried
under
2 to 3 feet of ice, so these plastics being eating by brown trout
are
not
fresh. It could also be that the plastics were picked up by the
trout
in
the previous summer and fall, and haven't been digested or passed.
This
worries me even more since I don't know what the full impact of
bass
fisherman tossing their used plastics into the lake could be on
the
brown
trout.

So - to answer your question - YES trout WILL soft plastic baits,
and
rigging that way for them is likely a hot technique in certain
situations
to
take them.

But more importantly to the bass fisherman (and all plastic bait
users)
is
DO NOT throw your used plastics in the water. If fish will hit
them
when
they're on your hook, they certainly will hit them and swallow
them
when
they're not !

For work, I will be making a targeted attempt to educate Vermont
anglers
on
this issue. Please spread the word !

Shawn




"Budd Cochran" wrote in message
...
Greetings from the S.E. Utah desert country.

Spent a few hours yesterday afternoon in the local mountains at
a
popular
trout lake, Oowah Lake, near my home in Moab, UT. had
considerable
success
in catching 1-3 pound Rainbows on red / white and black / white
spoons,
but
my wife discovered something I though was rather odd.

She rigged up with a small portion of a 6" Senko clone on an old
but
sharp
Aberdeen hook and began getting solid bites. Exposing the hook
point
more
got her five nice trout in about 30 minutes (she doesn't fish a
lot)
before
a big one broke her line.

I changed over to an Eagle Claw Tru-Turn and another chunk of
the
plastic
worm and after 7 more fish ( I caught 10 on spoons) caught the
biggest
'Bow
of the afternoon, about 17 inches long.

Ok, does anybody have any ideas about this? I've never heard of
anything
like this ... Trout on Bass lures. I'm gonna have to try it
again.
VBG

All comments welcome.

Budd

Warren :

I think prt of it could be what somebody else here has already commented on.
Salt-impregnated soft plastic baits swell over time in water, which probably
would make it harder to pass. Not impossible however, and I'm sure this is
occurring more often than we think and for the most part the baits ARE
eventually getting passed. But if and when a fish eats numerous baits
within a short time period trying to pass all of these as they swell, roll,
and tangle inside the fish's stomach ..... well, it could be a problem.

I'm not in the position to speak with any great deal of authority on this,
as I haven't studied it. I'm just speculating about impacts, and mainly
wanted to report to the group on this interesting observation in Vermont.

But the guy named "John" who has responded a couple times so far seems to
think it's the new "lead shot" issue in aquatics. I personally don't think
it's even close to warranting that level of alarm. If waves of fish start
washing up on lakes around Vermont and the rest of the country stuffed to
the gills with soft plastics, then we should be worrying.

But for now, I think a nice, targeting PSA to the angling community would
suffice. Again, as I said earlier, I think for the most part the angling
community is generally full of well-informed, concerned people who would not
intentionally do anything to harm lakes and rivers and the fish that swim in
them ! However, having said that, some anglers may not realize or take the
time to think about what happens to their used plastics after being tossed
in the lake. I'm sure many people may actually think they just "go away" -
dissolved or breakdown eventually or something - which they don't.

So, just by educating angler groups as to the fate of these baits in the
environment could be a vast improvement and result in a large reduction in
the amount of plastics thrown overboard.

Shawn



"go-bassn" wrote in message
...
Hi Shawn, thanks for contributing here; Any idea why something as soft &
rounded like a soft plastic grub, worm, etc would not simply pass through
a
fish's digestive tract? I find it hard to believe that a trout could
digest
a bony crawfish & not have a plastic grub slide right through.

Warren

"Shawn" non@non wrote in message
...
Budd :

You're right about my point. The fact that many of these trout had
multiple
plastics in their stomach tells me they either aren't passing them at
all,
or are passing them very slowly with much difficultly. So, in the
meantime,
while they're working on getting them out, there's not much room for
actual
food and nutrition. Obviously this isn't going to happen with every
fish
whether it's a bass or trout or something else that swallows a soft
plastic
bait. Most likely only eat one or so and that leaves room for other
good
food while they work on passing the plastic. Fish do eat a number of
nasty
things that can't be digested well such as crayfish claws, pine cones,
snail
shells etc etc, but they are eventually passed. So a trout eating ONE
or
maybe TWO plastic worms might not be a big deal. A trout that finds the
motherload, or develops a taste for garlic and salt (;-) could be in
trouble
in terms of packing it's stomach with undigestable stuff, leaving no
room
for actual food.

Regardless of all the "what if's", I still think it's something anglers
need
to be conscious of, and take care not to just haphazardly throw used
soft
plastics into lakes.

Shawn




"Budd Cochran" wrote in message
...
I think Shawn's point is that the plastics might cause the fish to not
have
stomach room for normal food and starve to death because of it. I can
see
where it is possible and I'm not even a tree hugger.

Budd

"John" wrote in message
...
So what?
Is there any thing special with these items?
Is there any demonstrated harm?
Fish have eaten all sort of mankind's refuse in water bodies for
centuries,
so what?
Maybe the plastics have been eaten and passed and eaten and passed
time
and
time again, if so is this a big problem?
The plastics came from stomachs of live fish that were eaten by
humans,
right?
Are the plastics only found in 2-8 pound brown trout?
Are they only found in Vermont's 2,200 acre lake?

Your post raises lots of questions. If this is a "NEW" event
occurring
in
multiple states in multiple water bodies with multiple species there
may
be
a big problem causing loss of fish life or health and forecasting
fishery
declines. If these plastics are just starting to be accumulating in
fish
stomachs, it could forecast issues in years ahead.

Has anyone heard of this quantity happening elsewhere?

John


--
Remove FLY to reply
"Shawn" wrote in message
...
Budd :

I'm a fisheries biologist with the State of Vermont's Fish &
Wildlife
Department. Last fall and early this spring I received a number
of
calls
about large brown trout (that we stock in a nearby 2,200-acre
lake)
having
very strange grubs or insect larvae in their stomach. Of course,
without
seeing the stomach contents, I couldn't comment on what the trout
might
have
been eating, but I told the anglers to keep the stomachs next time
they
found such things when cleaning their fish. Over the winter
ice-fishing
season, and through this spring, several anglers brought stomachs
from
brown
trout ranging from 2 to 10 pounds into the local baitshop. The
owner
of
the
shop put the stomachs in the freezer, then called me one day this
spring
when he had 8 or 10 stomachs in ziplock bags. I told him to thaw
them
out
and I'd be down in an hour or so.

I brought all my insect guides, minnow guides etc etc - anything I
thought
might help me identify the strange prey these brown trout were
eating.
But,
when I got to the baitshop and picked up the first "grub", I
started
to
laugh. When I told the baitshop owner it was a "senko", he
immediately
realized I was right and turned red, embarrassed he didn't realize
it
himself right away. Anyways, out of the 10 stomachs I examined
that
day
with the strange "grubs" in them, every one of them turned out to
be
plastic
baits of some sort. One stomach from an 8-pound brown trout had
14
different plastic lures in it, ranging from senkos to tube jigs to
flukes
to
broken pieces of what looked like plastic worm bits.

Now - this is what I think is happening. I'm also a bass
fisherman,
and
I
fish in our local Bassmasters club. So, I know how fast bass
fisherman
go
through soft plastics. At the end of a day's fishing, whether for
a
tournament or just for fun, the floor of my boat and my friends
boats
are
littered with soft plastics that are torn and won't stay on hooks
anymore.
Most ethical fisherman who care about the environment, the lakes
they
fish,
and the fish they're after take those plastics home and dispose of
them
properly. However, I have personally witnessed countless times,
fisherman
tearing off a plastic worm and throwing it into the lake. Maybe
sometimes
the plastics blow out of the bass boats as they tear across the
lake
at
70mph. No matter how these plastics are getting into the lake, I
have
now
seen first hand that trout WILL eat them. Not only do they eat
them
as
they
gently sway and sink to the bottom of an 80-foot deep lake, in my
opinion
they are also being picked up after they've reached the bottom.
Brown
trout
will forage the bottom of lakes, and in the winter under the ice
will
do
so
in very shallow water even. Since seeing the plastics in the
stomachs,
I've
spoken to more and more trout fisherman and I'm finding this is a
much
too
common occurence - alot of the trout fisherman are getting brown
trout
with
plastics in their stomachs in January, February, and March.

Anyone who is familiar with Vermont knows that our bass fishing
season
ends
in November, and that from December to mid-April our lakes are
buried
under
2 to 3 feet of ice, so these plastics being eating by brown trout
are
not
fresh. It could also be that the plastics were picked up by the
trout
in
the previous summer and fall, and haven't been digested or passed.
This
worries me even more since I don't know what the full impact of
bass
fisherman tossing their used plastics into the lake could be on
the
brown
trout.

So - to answer your question - YES trout WILL soft plastic baits,
and
rigging that way for them is likely a hot technique in certain
situations
to
take them.

But more importantly to the bass fisherman (and all plastic bait
users)
is
DO NOT throw your used plastics in the water. If fish will hit
them
when
they're on your hook, they certainly will hit them and swallow
them
when
they're not !

For work, I will be making a targeted attempt to educate Vermont
anglers
on
this issue. Please spread the word !

Shawn




"Budd Cochran" wrote in message
...
Greetings from the S.E. Utah desert country.

Spent a few hours yesterday afternoon in the local mountains at
a
popular
trout lake, Oowah Lake, near my home in Moab, UT. had
considerable
success
in catching 1-3 pound Rainbows on red / white and black / white
spoons,
but
my wife discovered something I though was rather odd.

She rigged up with a small portion of a 6" Senko clone on an old
but
sharp
Aberdeen hook and began getting solid bites. Exposing the hook
point
more
got her five nice trout in about 30 minutes (she doesn't fish a
lot)
before
a big one broke her line.

I changed over to an Eagle Claw Tru-Turn and another chunk of
the
plastic
worm and after 7 more fish ( I caught 10 on spoons) caught the
biggest
'Bow
of the afternoon, about 17 inches long.

Ok, does anybody have any ideas about this? I've never heard of
anything
like this ... Trout on Bass lures. I'm gonna have to try it
again.
VBG

All comments welcome.

Budd

Re swelling plastics. Salt impregnated plastics will swell when submerged
long enough to become water saturated. There was a report some time back
that said they would become 12 times their size, but that has been proven
by several tests (including my own) to be a fallacy. It IS possible for
super-heavily salted baits to swell to nearly double their size though.
(the more salt to dissolve, the more they will swell). Even with more than
8 months of immersion in a test tank, I've never had any quite reach twice
their size.

I would offer a hypothesis that this situation (I hesitate to label it a
problem) is more commonly encountered today because there are more anglers
throwing heavily salted baits. First, they break off the hook on the cast,
hookset or during the battle far more often than traditional plastics, and
2nd, they sink. So there are more chunks of plastic "roaming free" in the
fish's habitat now than when most plastics weren't salted or carried far
less salt. Old style plastics didn't end up in the water unless you broke
off or discarded them there. Senkos and their ilk end up there by accident
all the time. Even when traditional (ie floating) plastic baits were lost
or discarded, they would float and eventually end up against or on the
bank, instead of on the bottom. Fewer of them ere eaten.

As far as their appearing in trout stomachs, I would suspect that corn is a
bigger problem. Corn is commonly used ad bait and as chum in waters where
stocked trout are targeted. I've caught rainbows and browns so full of corn
kernels than they were grotesquely bloated, and they apparently can neither
digest nor easily pass it.

RichZ©
www.richz.com/fishing

My apologies Shawn, I didn't read the entire article.

Warren
--
http://www.warrenwolk.com/
http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com
2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions



"Shawn" wrote in message
...
Warren - actually, there were 2 fish mentioned in Ronnie's article. The
one
with 19 plastic worms and lizards (plus hooks) in it was otherwise
healthy.
That fish was not caught by Ronnie, but by someone else who took the fish
to
a taxidermist. Further along in the article however, Ronnie then says he
himself caught a bass once in Lake Martin that was skinny and in poor
health. This fish had 4 plastic worms in it's stomach, and was starving
to
death. This incident was what made Ronnie finally stop throwing his
plastics into the lake.

Shawn


"go-bassn" wrote in message
...
The article says the bass was healthy Shawn...

Warren

"Shawn" non@non wrote in message
...
Read your article Ronnie - it's a good message and one that should get
out
there more often. I hope it doesn't take each angler to find a skinny
fish
full of plastic to stop throwing them out like that. I have to admit
that
years ago I used to do the same thing.


"RGarri7470" wrote in message
...
Reminds me of the story and picture I posted ast November of a bass
with
19
plastic worms in its stomach

http://fishing.about.com/cs/fishfact.../aa110303a.htm
Ronnie

http://fishing.about.com

My apologies Shawn, I didn't read the entire article.

Warren
--
http://www.warrenwolk.com/
http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com
2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions



"Shawn" wrote in message
...
Warren - actually, there were 2 fish mentioned in Ronnie's article. The
one
with 19 plastic worms and lizards (plus hooks) in it was otherwise
healthy.
That fish was not caught by Ronnie, but by someone else who took the fish
to
a taxidermist. Further along in the article however, Ronnie then says he
himself caught a bass once in Lake Martin that was skinny and in poor
health. This fish had 4 plastic worms in it's stomach, and was starving
to
death. This incident was what made Ronnie finally stop throwing his
plastics into the lake.

Shawn


"go-bassn" wrote in message
...
The article says the bass was healthy Shawn...

Warren

"Shawn" non@non wrote in message
...
Read your article Ronnie - it's a good message and one that should get
out
there more often. I hope it doesn't take each angler to find a skinny
fish
full of plastic to stop throwing them out like that. I have to admit
that
years ago I used to do the same thing.


"RGarri7470" wrote in message
...
Reminds me of the story and picture I posted ast November of a bass
with
19
plastic worms in its stomach

http://fishing.about.com/cs/fishfact.../aa110303a.htm
Ronnie

http://fishing.about.com

I had a Zoom Lil Critter Craw (a plastic craw that is NOT salt impregnated)
come out of my boat's bilge after God-knows-how-long, and I'd guess it had
swelled to 4x its original size. Who knows what substances it encountered
down there.

It was hideous lol...

Warren

"RichZ" wrote in message
...
Re swelling plastics. Salt impregnated plastics will swell when submerged
long enough to become water saturated. There was a report some time back
that said they would become 12 times their size, but that has been proven
by several tests (including my own) to be a fallacy. It IS possible for
super-heavily salted baits to swell to nearly double their size though.
(the more salt to dissolve, the more they will swell). Even with more than
8 months of immersion in a test tank, I've never had any quite reach twice
their size.

I would offer a hypothesis that this situation (I hesitate to label it a
problem) is more commonly encountered today because there are more anglers
throwing heavily salted baits. First, they break off the hook on the cast,
hookset or during the battle far more often than traditional plastics, and
2nd, they sink. So there are more chunks of plastic "roaming free" in the
fish's habitat now than when most plastics weren't salted or carried far
less salt. Old style plastics didn't end up in the water unless you broke
off or discarded them there. Senkos and their ilk end up there by accident
all the time. Even when traditional (ie floating) plastic baits were lost
or discarded, they would float and eventually end up against or on the
bank, instead of on the bottom. Fewer of them ere eaten.

As far as their appearing in trout stomachs, I would suspect that corn is
a
bigger problem. Corn is commonly used ad bait and as chum in waters where
stocked trout are targeted. I've caught rainbows and browns so full of
corn
kernels than they were grotesquely bloated, and they apparently can
neither
digest nor easily pass it.

RichZ©
www.richz.com/fishing

Go-bassn wrote:
Zoom Lil Critter Craw (a plastic craw that is NOT salt impregnated)

If it was a zoom and wasn't a laminated color, it was salt impregnated. Not
to the extent that the yamamoto stuff is, but definitely salty. All zoom's
solid color baits, including the little critter craw, have been for years.

Bilge oil in the mix though, does upset the applecart.

RichZ©
www.richz.com/fishing